


Whisper On A Scream

by propertyofthehalfbloodprince



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish has no chill, Aged-Up Character(s), Also everyone is snarky AF, Alternate Universe, Canonical level violence, Everyone Is Alive, Literally there is no universe- alternate or canonical- where Adam would ever have chill, M/M, Ronan Lynch is Bad at Feelings, Slow Burn AF, Swearing, This is going to get pretty dark, for now at least, the author still feels no remorse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 06:11:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9165541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/propertyofthehalfbloodprince/pseuds/propertyofthehalfbloodprince
Summary: What would Ronan Lynch look like if he was born into a world where the Raven Boys didn't meet until they were men? In a world where Aurora Lynch did not slip away when Niall died and Gansey's search for Glendower was cut short by tragedy.What if Adam Parrish was never accepted to Aglionby and Noah Czerny's parents sent him to a boarding school in Connecticut instead of Virginia? What if Henry Cheng was never sent east of the Mississippi for high school and Blue Sargent found a slightly different way to see the world?Thisis that world.----Captain Ronan Lynch is content with his life. He loves his family and his unit and his job usually keeps his restless mind from becoming too dark and dangerous. That's all about to change when a CIA analyst confronts him with an oversized file, a crazy fucking theory, and the one word he was least expecting:Greywaren.





	

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This is what I've been doing instead of working on _Inside Out_... #stillnoremorse  
>  2\. So this all came to fruition in my brain back in September when I finished The Raven King and it just hasn't left me. I tried ignoring it, as the original concept was a smutty one-shot, but then an actual plot just kind of built itself and here I am helpless to stop my fingers from typing.  
> 3\. I'm not sure how long this is going to end up being (ballpark: 25 chapters, maybe?) but the chapters and the fic are going to be long. The posting schedule (Once a week/every ten days) should be the same as IO.  
> 4\. The first two chapters are set-up and then things get going into the nitty-gritty in three (AKA: Kavinsky shows up and shit pops off, as per usual).  
> 5\. Alternating POVS because it's me and I don't know how to write without alternating POV  
> 6\. **Warning** : The characters are aged-up and in the military/CIA/mob so the content is going to be heavy. While canonical-level depictions of violence will not take place until a little later, there are mentions of human-trafficking (specifically children) in this chapter. There is no rape/non-con, nor mentions of it (outside the dispelling of it). Please feel free to message me if you have questions/concerns/ need clarifications before reading.  
> 7\. Title of work and all chapters come from Blue on Black by Kenny Wayne Shepherd.

\----  
They were all well and truly fucked.

Ronan had done… well, he didn’t know what, but clearly he had done _something_ and completely fucked them.

That was the only reason they’d be called in by the fucking Commander at this hour on a Monday.

Hung over and irritated, the last fucking thing Ronan wanted to deal with was the Commander chewing his ass out. _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

“What’d you do, Lynch?” Gansey asked from his seat to Ronan’s left.

Elbows propped on the metal table, face buried in his hands, Ronan groaned, “I didn’t do anything, fuck, Gansey. You were with me all weekend.”

“Ugh,” Gansey grunted, leaning back in his chair. _Ugh_ being the closest thing to agreement Gansey was going to verbalize in his current state. Aside from his slightly disheveled hair and the Army uniform, he still managed to look like a Renaissance model in repose. Richard Campbell Gansey III even wore his hangovers with dignity.

The door behind them crashed into the wall as it was flung open. “The fuck you do this time, Lynch?” Czerny asked. He slumped into the room, boots slamming against the linoleum as though it was the reason he was there.

Gansey flinched. “God, Noah, _loud noises_ -”

“Nothing, Czerny, shit.”

“Then why the hell did my _very pregnant_ wife have to wake up to my goddamn phone going off at four in morning because the Commander was calling my ass in?” Czerny dropped into the seat to Ronan’s right.

Ronan lifted his blood-shot eyes from his hands to look at Czerny. The only member of their unit who was married, over the age of thirty, and a parent guaranteed that Czerny always looked just as fucked up as the rest of them, just for more wholesome reasons. His light blonde hair was a haystack on top of his perpetually exhausted face. Deep purple crescents accented his bright brown eyes and pinched expression. Damn, the guy needed some sleep.

Ronan knocked his elbow against Czerny’s. “Tell Rose I’m sorry.”

“So we are here because of you!” Cheng said in a sing-song voice, striding into the room. Even hung over and in uniform, Cheng, like Gansey, looked like he belonged in a boardroom, not the military. Perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfect face. It’d be irritating if Ronan didn’t love all of them enough to take bullets for them. Had the scars to prove it, in fact. 

“Cheng, why must you always be so loud,” Gansey whined, his eyelids crinkling more tightly shut behind his wire rim glasses. “Shhhhh. Please, I beg of you.”

“Triple-shot mocha,” Cheng announced, plopping a paper cup on the table in front of Gansey.

Gansey immediately tumbled forward, eyes flying open. “You’re my favorite person, Henry. Have I told you that lately?” He removed the lid from the cup and inhaled the heavily chocofied steam wafting upwards. “My absolute favorite person.”

“I better fucking be, especially compared to these two. Grandpa Czerny,” Cheng dropped a cup in front of Czerny, “coffee, black with a double-shot and Lynch,” another cup dropped at Ronan’s fingertips, “coffee, cream, sugar, double-shot, and a triple-pump of caramel. You should’ve seen the look Connor gave me when I ordered this for you, you fucking princess.”

Ronan lovingly palmed the cup and brought it up to his cheek. Its warmth provided a small bit of relief from the throbbing in his head. “Fuck you, Cheng.”

“You know, the _thank yous_ have really gone down hill around here.” Cheng clapped Ronan on the back before taking his spot on Gansey’s left. He tossed the coffee carrier into the trashcan in the corner.

“Again,” Ronan took a drawn out swig of coffee, “fuck you, you glorious bastard. This is fucking amazing.”

“You’re welcome, asshole,” Cheng smiled, taking a drink from his own paper cup. “So, what’d you do this time, Lynch?”

“Fuck all if I know.”

“Gansey, what’d he do?”

Gansey rubbed his temples, hair falling into his eyes making him even more casually handsome. “The list of Ronan’s potential offenses is long and illustrious. Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Let’s just hope this time they don’t send us away long enough that I miss the birth of this kid, too,” Noah said, glaring at the lock screen of his phone: Golden-haired Rose, smiling and holding two blonde-haired, blue-eyed boys with another standing between her legs. Three boys and a fourth on the way. And Noah hadn’t been there to see any of them come into the world. “I promised I’d be there for this one.”

“You will be,” Ronan said automatically.

Ronan Lynch wasn’t one for lying, but this wasn’t that. It was just a thing they did for each other. Said the things the others needed to hear no matter what the situation.

_Yes, you’ll be here to see your fourth son be born._

_She’s a fucking psychopath, Cheng._

_I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure whiskey could fix this._

_Absolutely, you’ll be fine. People live with less blood in their systems all the time. Now shut up and help put more pressure on that wound._

_That shade of lime isn’t something you should be seen in even when you’re dead._

Truth, lie, hyperbole, or utter bullshit, it never mattered between them. Keeping each other alive- _getting each other home_ \- was the only thing that ever mattered.

“Seriously, though, Ronan,” Cheng said. “What did you do?”

“Lynch didn’t do anything,” The Commander growled, making his way into the windowless room and around the table. He had an exceptionally thick folder in his arms. “Christ, there’s no need for that,” he waved his empty hand as they scrambled to their feet. “It isn’t even zero-six-hundred and this meeting sure as shit isn’t going on the books.”

They didn’t listen. They all stood at attention, their backs rigid and shoulders straight. The Commander squinted his gray eyes and let out a small laugh. “Fuck me, it’s off-putting seeing you all in uniform. Now, sit.”

Dropping like stones in a pond, they gladly collapsed back into their plastic seats. They all may have been insubordinate little shits but never with their Commander.

Colonel Gray was the type of man that was intimidating not because of his size, though he was taller and broader than most, but because he never demanded anything of anyone, he just took it from you before you realized you had willingly given it. Staunch respect, unswerving loyalty, and a healthy dose of fear. Colonel Gray was a force of nature and even disrespectful fucks like Ronan Lynch were saying “yes, sir” and “no, sir” with only mild dissent in their voices after a few days under his command.

“Alright, let’s get this over with,” Gray huffed, worrying his fingers at his weathered brow. “Come on in, Blue. Parrish.”

They all tensed as two people they had never seen before came traipsing into the room. Hands went to sidearms and eyes darted to each other, The Commander, the two new arrivals. No one- literally no one outside of their immediate families, Gray, and their base command team- knew what they did, hell, they were all wearing fake nametapes (Kim, Campbell, Donovan, Schoonover). Random fucking people couldn’t just see them here, in this building, _in this room_ , with their Commander. Who were these fuckers?

One male. One female. Both Caucasian, young and healthy, and easily identifiable in a crowd. They’d be easy to evade and easier to find (and eliminate) if necessary. They were both in jeans and t-shirts and looked about as unassuming as the rest of the world at five-fucking-thirty a.m. on a Monday.

The male was tall- Ronan had at least two inches on him though, three in his boots- sturdy shouldered with well-muscled arms. But he was lanky; Ronan could drop him blind-folded and with only one working limb. Thin lips, absurdly high cheekbones, slightly crooked nose as though it had been broken multiple times in multiple places. There was something oddly graceful about him. The obvious intelligence behind his blue eyes was what made Ronan do a double take, though. The guy was his age, maybe a little older, and looked even more exhausted than they did. His pale skin was dusted with freckles and he had big hands, long fingers. For whatever reason, Ronan’s mind stopped gathering information when he got to the guy’s hands. So distracted, he didn’t even assess the female.

“Why are they all touching their guns?” the guy asked as he and the woman rounded the table to Gray’s side. His voice was thick with exhaustion and a southern accent. The guy turned to them, his eyes widening behind his glasses- How the fuck had Ronan not noticed he was wearing glasses (most likely because he had been too distracted by those blue eyes)- and he reached behind his back. Reflexes honed from years of being shot at had Ronan drawing his weapon, pointing it directly at the guy’s chest. Too late, Blue Eyes had already drawn his.

Gansey, Cheng, and Czerny were all leveling their weapons at the guy as well, their groggy dispositions gone on the wings of a bird of adrenaline.

Gansey was the one who spoke for them. “Commander, who the fuck-”

“I know your face,” Blue Eyes cut Gansey off, but he was eyeing Ronan. His voice was awfully steady for a guy with four guns pointing directly at his heart. He tilted his head to the left as he assessed Ronan; if Ronan were paying closer attention he would’ve noticed the smile tucked into the sharp edges of Blue Eyes’ mouth, the way his pupils dilated.

“Adam, put your weapon down,” the female commanded half-heartedly. She didn’t seem too bothered by the presence of so many pissed off men pointing loaded weapons at one another. “They aren’t… they won’t shoot us.” She turned her gaze on the men across the table. She was short but Ronan found her to be more of a threat than Blue Eyes. She was obviously clever and she knew it, and even with that stature she’d probably put up a better fight than everyone else in this room. Against his better judgment, he already liked her. “Put that shit away, unless you want to piss off your boss by shooting his kid.”

Gray was staring at the six of them with a smirk that Ronan had never seen before. It made him look almost soft. “Gentlemen, my step-daughter, Blue Sargent.”

The woman, Blue, waved a sarcastic hand at all of them, her smirk matching her step-father’s. “Hey.”

Gansey, Cheng, and Czerny immediately stowed their guns. Blue Eyes and Ronan continued their stand off. 

“Parrish, don’t make me regret letting you sleep in my house. Gun down,” Gray ordered. His tone left no room to contemplate what would happen if Parrish didn’t put his gun down. “You too, Lynch. You can go to the bathroom and compare penis sizes later if it’ll make you feel better.”

Czerny- the traitor- stifled his laugh with a fake cough. Ronan glared but tucked his gun back into its holster as Parrish shoved his behind his back.

There was a moment of tension as Parrish glowered back, but then Sargent elbowed him in the small of his back. “Sorry,” he apologized, that honeyed accent paired with a sleep-muddled groan hitting Ronan below the gut. “I’m kind of shitty before I’ve had coffee.”

Something in Ronan chaffed at seeing the easy touching between Sargent and Parrish. They trusted each other the way he trusted Gansey, Cheng, and Czerny. That type of trust wasn’t an easy thing; it was developed in the shadows of long nights that turned into mornings, fermented in each other’s spilled blood, sealed with grit teeth as someone dug shrapnel out of the other’s back.

“Whatever,” Ronan huffed, huddling back down into his seat. “Sir, who the fuck is this guy?”  
Parrish snorted. “What? No excuse for pointing a loaded weapon at me for literally no reason?”

“Sorry,” Ronan drawled, his frustration seeping out of every syllable that passed his lips, “I’m just shitty, coffee or not.” He took one last swill of his coffee, removed the lid from the paper cup, and then shoved it across the table at Parrish. “Now, drink this. And shut the fuck up.”

Parrish picked up the cup and stared at its half-drunk contents.

“You saw me drink it so you know it isn’t poison,” Ronan growled, not sure why he felt such extreme irritation for this guy.

Parrish’s eyebrows rose. “Something tells me poison would only power you.”

“Enough, both of you,” Gray said tersely. “Parrish, Blue, sit. Let’s get a move on.” Parrish dropped into the seat beside Blue. “Gentlemen, this is Adam Parrish-” his whole name made Ronan growl again, “- he’s an analyst with the CIA.”

Cheng and Czerny slammed their foreheads against the table top in perfect tandem.

“No, _please_ , Sir, _no_ ,” Gansey groaned. “Anything but working with Special Activities Division again. Ronan doesn’t play well with others.”

“Who said anything about working _with_ the CIA?” Parrish snarled. “Or that I’m with SAD?”

Gray gripped his forehead at his temples. “You came to me with this, Parrish, don’t forget that.”

“The fuck is an analyst doing with a weapon?” Ronan asked.

“I said, _enough_.” The Commander’s fist collided with the top of the over-sized file. “Parrish found something and he brought it to Blue-”

“You work for the CIA, too?” Ronan asked. Blue nodded. “Damn, just when I thought I was going to like you.”

“- Blue brought it to me once she saw what the file revolved around.” The Commander thrust the folder across the table and opened it to the very center. It was the first page to an exceptionally thick packet of text, most of which was blacked out, but someone with annoyingly neat penmanship had filled in guesses. One word appeared over and over above the blackened portions.

Greywaren.

Everything drained from Ronan when he looked up and made eye contact with Parrish as he emptied the contents of the coffee cup. Parrish didn’t recoil under Ronan’s searing gaze.

“I never thought I’d actually see you in person. The pictures don’t- you’re so…” Parrish trailed off, sending the cup sailing into the trash. Why did he sound… sad? “You in person doesn’t match the pictures.”

_What the fuck was happening?_

The Commander demanded, “Parrish, start at the beginning.”

Parrish reached forward and thumped a finger against the text. “My job is to track Eastern European mobs and their movements in and out of London and then into the U.S. Drugs, arms, humans, black market goods, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Because that isn’t too much for one person,” Henry said.

“My main focus is a Bulgarian group, _Sŭnyat Kradtsi_. They aren’t a particularly large outfit but they are powerful.” Parrish flipped the text pages to a grainy photo of a thin man wearing white-rimmed sunglasses smiling at three men with their backs to the security camera, they all had what looked to be a howling wolf tattooed on their necks. Ronan’s skin crawled. “This is Joseph Kavinsky, the London syndicate boss. His father is number three back home in Sofia. They’ve been into everything from cocaine and prostitutes to arms and stolen art, back to cocaine again. Scotland Yard has gotten enough low level guys that they’ve gotten smart, Kavinsky hasn’t been caught on camera in the last year- and it’s fucking London, with all that CCTV, that’s damn near impossible. He may look like a fucking tool but Kavinsky runs a tight operation. He’s almost tripled the _Kradtsi_ ’s territory in the time I’ve been watching them. Their influence in and out of Bulgaria because of what Kavinsky Junior’s been doing in London is undeniable. But for whatever reason their profit in cocaine started to slump last March… so they moved into a new market: children.”

Something in the room shifted, snapped, the tension ratcheting up. Parrish had them hooked, completely and without hesitation. “Kids have been disappearing all over the city. There is no rhyme or reason to it. Boys and girls of all ethnicities, ages, and socio-economic classes. He even brings some in from other parts of Europe. Kavinsky hasn’t sold any of the kids-”

“Then how do you even know he’s actually the one taking them?” Gansey asked. His hand closest to Ronan’s was a white-knuckled fist. “If they’ve been disappearing for over a year and haven’t been sold, how can you trace them to Kavinsky?”

“Bodies.” Parrish said the word as though if he said it fast enough it wouldn’t be quite as nauseating (he was wrong). He turned to an extensive two-page map of London and pointed at reddened areas surrounding a blue highlighted section to the west of Central London. “The _Kradtsi_ disposes of what they don’t want traced in enemy territory. Coke that’s been cut with too much extra shit, ODed prostitutes and clients, and now… this. There’ve been six in the last year and those are just the ones that’ve been found. Undoubtedly some have flushed out the Thames-”

“What is he doing to these children? How’d they die?” Cheng asked. Ronan was too hung over for the answer to this question. Too angry. Too everything.

Parrish’s thumb flicked to more pages of text. “From what Scotland Yard has ascertained from the autopsies, all of their hearts gave out.” Noah reached forward and grabbed the autopsy reports, his exhaustion replaced with a fury that didn’t sit right on his features. Parrish continued, “No broken bones or fractures, no bruises, no starvation or dehydration, no discernable drugs in their systems, no sexual assault- no anything. Completely healthy children. Except-”

They all leaned forward as Parrish reclined back, a push and pull like a current into shore.

“Every time Kavinsky’s been picked up he’s been fucked out of his mind but he manages to pass every piss and blood test with flying colors. There isn’t anything in his system that shouldn’t be. Elevated levels of Potassium and Serotonin, that’s it. If you look at the reports so do all of the children.”

Noah’s fingers thrummed against the autopsy reports, most likely running through every drug he had ever heard of or administered. “So you think he’s found a way to get undetectably high and he’s testing it on these kids before he puts it on the market?”

Parrish moved his fingers to mimic Noah’s. He bit his bottom lip. “I don’t think he’s taking it to get high, I think that’s just a side effect.” He flipped back to the original page of text. “Like I said, the _Kradtsi_ moves black market items, mostly expensive as fuck art. All of their pieces are apparently the real deal and have been stolen and replaced by fakes. We’ve had multiple experts, people who have devoted actual decades to the study of art, look at them and they can’t tell the difference between what is hanging in the museum and the pieces that have been confiscated from Kavinsky’s clients. Not a single one of them can find a wrong brush stroke or use of color or what the fuck ever they look for. They are identical pieces, exact replicas.” He looked meaningfully at Ronan. “Can you think of anywhere he’d be able to obtain such believable forgeries?”

_Ah, now we're getting somewhere._

Parrish only had eyes for Ronan. “I’ve been listening to the _Kradtsi_ for two years and in all of the chatter I’ve picked up Kavinsky uses the word Greywaren the way you use fuck.” Ronan’s lips quirked up as his intestines knotted themselves. “It’s like guys who talk about how much they get laid, if you have to talk about it all the time, then it isn’t actually happening, you know? The guy is obsessed with it, the entire concept of the Greywaren. I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about so I did some digging and that led me to your family and ultimately, you.”

Parrish flipped to a seemingly random page. It was a shadowed image of Ronan. You couldn’t make out the majority of his features, the camera too far away, but the set of his shoulders, the way the pulled up hood settled around his face, the jut of his jaw, there was no question it was him. Behind the blurry photo were Ronan’s _extremely fucking classified_ medical records- the real ones, not the fabricated ones for Captain Landon Donovan. Both the photo and his medical report looked more worn than the rest of the pages in the file.

Parrish tapped a finger against the security photo. “Ronan Niall Lynch.”

Having jumped out of many a perfectly good aircraft in his lifetime, Ronan was familiar with the sensation of free fall and his full name in that accent sent his stomach on a one-way trip down.

“Twenty-six years old. Six foot, three inches. Two-hundred-twenty-six pounds at last weigh-in. Twenty-ten vision. Allergies, none. Sustained fourteen bullet wounds,” Blue hissed at the number, but Parrish kept talking. He wasn’t even checking the paper for the information, he was staring at Ronan and Ronan was staring back. “Countless broken bones, concussions, and fractures. Sixty-two confirmed kills with a weapon. My guess is that there is nowhere in the world outside of your own head where your hand-to-hand kill count exists.”

Again, without looking, Parrish flicked through the file, behind Ronan’s medical records, a photo of fifteen-year-old Ronan, surrounded by his family was revealed. God, he looked so young. And happy.

“What the fuck,” Gansey whispered.

Parrish continued. “Parents, Niall and Aurora Lynch. Older brother Declan, younger brother Matthew. Father murdered in the driveway of the family home and found by sixteen-year-old Ronan. The resulting emotional spiral ended with a street racing accident and a stint in rehab for God only knows what because, again, there isn’t a single record on this earth.”

“How do you know there isn’t a record?” Ronan asked, his voice a whisper, a challenge.

“If there was a record I would have found it.” Challenge met. No one breathed a word to stop Parrish from continuing. “Your release from rehab is where things get interesting-”

“Because up to this point things were boring?” Blue asked with an arched brow.

“- your mother shipped you off to a military academy in upstate New York where you graduated with top honors. You advanced on to West Point, where you ended up playing, of all fucking sports, tennis,” Parrish rolled his eyes, “and befriended Richard Campbell Gansey III, son of Congresswoman Gansey and the only person at this table with a more notable arrest record than Lynch.”  
Like clockwork, as though they were once again freshmen cadets sneaking booze back into the barracks, the side of Gansey’s fist knocked against Ronan’s. Some things you never grew out of.

Parrish made to roll his eyes at the gesture, but instead, his gaze narrowed at the way they held their arms together from fisted knuckles all the way to their elbows and didn’t move. He waited until their arms separated and dropped before picking up where he left off. “Somehow, West Point accepted both of you- felony arrests and all- and even more bewildering, you both graduated without further arrests or disciplinary action.” Parrish flipped to another picture. This one of Ronan and Gansey on graduation day. Arms slung around each other, their brand new gold bars glistening off the shoulders of their dress blues, hats already askew across their foreheads. Gansey was smiling at the camera- ever the image of a young officer- with Ronan curling inwards, Matthew having caught him mid-laugh.

This picture was the thing that finally rattled Ronan’s cage. Everything- absolutely everything including Ronan’s medical record and Gansey’s sealed juvenile record- that Parrish had shown him up to this point could have been found in the deepest levels of Internet hell by a sixteen-year-old kid with too much time on his hands. But this picture… this picture was taken on a disposable camera and only existed in one place: the living room of Gansey’s and his house.

Who the hell was this guy?

“So he got his shit together and joined up? I fail to see how that falls into the category of interesting,” Blue said, reclining back in her seat.

“Is there a point to all of this or is being a fucking creep your way of coming on to me?” Ronan asked. Thankfully his voice did not betray how much his stomach was roiling. There was no backing out of this, no mistaken identity, no doppelganger bullshit he could pull, no lie circular enough to shake this guy- the Commander had already called him Lynch in front of him.

“Your West Point file is… fascinating,” Parrish said slowly. “Gansey’s as well.”

Gansey tipped an invisible hat towards Parrish.

“But, you,” Parrish pointed at Ronan, eyes glistening with feverish excitement, “you were granted a single room as a freshman, which is unheard of to begin with, but then there are swaths of time- months upon months- that are completely undocumented. You’re there and then suddenly, you’re not. And when you do reappear,” Parrish grabbed the folder, turned to a new page, and recited, “‘He looked like someone had taken a cheese grater to his fucking face. When I asked him what happened, he told me to fuck off and then decked me. If it had been any of the rest of us, we’d have been fucked. But there was always something different about Lynch.’ Where’d you disappear to, Lynch?”

“Disneyworld.”

“Your family owns a business doesn’t it,” Parrish continued. “There’s the farm in Virginia that your mother still lives on and runs, but your brother maintains most of the less, uh, savory portions of the operation out of D.C. Interesting pieces your brother sells,” Parrish bit at his bottom lip, “Greywaren.”

Ronan waited a moment- the knee jerk reaction to the title was always what gave him away before. “Grey- what?”

“Yeah, Grey-what?” Sargent asked, scrunching up her face. “The words all over the fucking file and you keep saying it, but I don’t know-”

“Greywaren,” Parrish said, his voice hard yet soft, accusatory and awed. “He can manifest things from his dreams. Doesn’t matter what, he can bring it back with him when he wakes up. Real, imaginary, big, little, inanimate, living-”

Sargent, mouth hanging slightly open, said, “Shut the fuck up.”

“And then his brother sells whatever he brings back, usually for prices that rival the GDPs of most small countries.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Ronan said incredulously. How the fuck did this guy know so much about him and his family? “I’ve never even heard that word before.”

“It’s your call sign, asshole, so don’t even try that shit.” Fuck, Parrish even knew his call sign? He really had done the damn thing properly. “What you can do… it’s incredible.”

Gansey’s hand landed on Ronan’s shoulder, Czerny’s knee knocked against his. Too far away for physical contact, Cheng’s knuckles thudded against the side of his chair. Wordless agreement to kill this stranger if Ronan asked.

“Except you aren’t the only one.”

Sargent bent forward, her disbelief was written into every line of her face. “There’s more than one person who can do that in the world?”

“There’s more than one person who can do that in his family,” Parrish replied and he flipped to another page, another picture of the Lynches, except Ronan wasn’t in it and it didn’t appear as though anyone in the photo knew it was being taken.

Declan had his arms extended towards the sky where a foot or two above Sean was suspended, giggling in that way children who didn’t yet know that they couldn’t trust their fathers to always catch them did. Chloe stood beside her father, smiling up at her flying little brother, a stuffed animal dangling from her hand. A few feet away, Hannah was sitting cross-legged on a blanket, her hand resting protectively on her slightly swollen stomach, watching her husband and children with such plain adoration it would’ve been sickening if it were anyone else’s family.

They were in the park by their house in Georgetown- Ronan had taken Sean and Chloe there enough times to recognize it easily. _Jesus Christ_ , this was probably taken last weekend.

Ronan’s hand went to his gun, everyone on his side of the table mirroring his actions. He had figured if the Commander had brought this guy in then he should at least entertain the conversation. That maybe there was a point to this whole fucking convoluted story. But this… Chloe and Sean were off-limits. _Fuck this guy._

“The stuffed animal,” Parrish said, staring down at the photo and answering Ronan’s unasked question, because seriously, how the fuck did he find out? It had never been spoken about. Referenced in passing conversation between the adults during holiday dinners or on hushed phone calls when naptime was accompanied by the appearance of something particularly bewildering or dangerous, but the words had never actually been said, so how did this guy just know? “I’ve never seen anything like that before- part giraffe, part zebra, part tiger and with wings- have you?”

There was no reason to pretend he wasn’t what he was anymore, it wasn’t as though Parrish was leaving this room in anything but a body bag anyway. “How do you know I didn’t give it to her?”

“I don’t, but I seriously doubt it. Tell me-”

“Parrish,” Gansey said slowly, placing his gun on the table in plain sight. He took off the safety and pointed the barrel directly at the young man across the table. His finger traced the trigger as he spoke, “What makes you think you’re going to leave this room alive with that kind of information? The kind of information that most government agencies have been trying to ascertain since that little girl was born. We’ve killed a lot of people- _a lot of people_ \- for a lot less. So, please, don’t continue to operate under the assumption that we won’t bury you alive behind this building just because your girlfriend is our Commander’s child.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa” Parrish said, hurriedly. His hands came up, palms facing out. “I’m not- _I’m not threatening her_ \- I would never- Dude, she’s a kid! I just,” Parrish’s eyes widened, “fuck, this all came out wrong.” He inclined his head towards Ronan. He looked young and earnest and horrified that everything was going downhill so swiftly. “I wasn’t threatening her or your family or you. I just think what you can do, what you both can do, is mind-blowing. _You can pull shit out of your dreams, that’s fucking insane!_ I was just curious about the genetics of the whole thing and you don’t have kids and I-”

“Thought it’d be a good idea to show me surveillance photos containing my niece and nephew and pregnant sister-in-law while talking out your ass about shit you’ll never understand?” Ronan’s voice was too steady, his finger far too close to his trigger. “We aren’t a fucking science fair project-”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think, I didn’t,” Parrish stuttered. He looked sickened by the turn of events. “Take the picture. Take it and burn it and you can be the one to wipe it from my personal hard drive. Shit, you can just have my fucking computer if that’ll make you feel better.”

“Personal hard drive?” Noah asked, darkly. “You’ve been creeping on Lynch in your free time and not at work?”

“All of you,” Gray gestured to his men, “give me your weapons. _Now_.”

Begrudgingly, and with more snark than was necessary, they all handed their guns over. The Commander kept his hand extended until they were also parted from their knives and boot holstered guns. Parrish’s shoulders relaxed once all of the weapons were on his side of the table. The Commander shook his head knowingly. “None of them need a gun to snap your neck, Parrish. Get to the fucking point because all of us are losing our goddamn patience.”

Slowly, his movements as exaggerated as possible, Parrish began ruffling through the file again. “Right. The point. I think Kavainksy can take things from his dreams-”

Ronan exhaled in disbelief. “You think that piece of shit is a Greywaren?”

“I think he’s a motherfucking thief.” Fingers still aching for a violent solution to his problem and head a mangled clusterfuck of colliding thoughts, Ronan couldn’t stop his sneer of approval at that Parrish’s description. “I think he’s got something- a drug, a tea, a fucking shaman who chants while he sleeps, what the fuck ever- that lets him go into his dreams and steal. I think he found a backdoor into fabricating the talent you were born with.”

Ronan had never heard what he could do be called a talent before.

Curse. Gift. Ability. Skill. _Holy fucking shit, Lynch, what the fuck is that? _He’d gotten all of those. But talent, that was a new one.__

__“This is a fascinating story but that’s all it is, Parrish. A lot of inferring and assuming and not a lot of actual evidence, tied together with an interesting twist,” Gansey said. “And what does this have to do with us- with Ronan- besides the obvious?”_ _

__“That’s where I come in,” Sargent said. “Adam came to my apartment yesterday all hopped up on coffee with that file. He opened it right to that picture,” Sargent flashed back to the grainy security photo of Ronan, “and I knew your face. There’s a picture in Dean’s office with all four of you and some other guys-”_ _

__“Aw, Sir, you have a picture of us in your house?” Henry said, smiling like a jackass._ _

__The Commander glared at him. “Fuck off, Cheng.”_ _

__“- so I called Dean, told him the basics of what Adam had found, and here we are sixteen hours later,” Sargent finished._ _

__The Commander gestured at the folder. “Parrish, show them the intel you received yesterday morning.”_ _

__Parrish fiddled with the pages and a message about a family vacation was presented, beside it the decoded meaning was written in blue ink and hasty, over-excited scrawl. “Kavinsky sent out an invitation for six months from Saturday to all of the big bosses, and I’m not just talking London and East Europe. Beijing, Seoul, Rio, Colombia, New York, Nairobi, Cairo. Anyone who is anyone got an invite for an auction for these kids. He’s ready to sell.”_ _

__“Wait, an auction for the kids? Not a sale of the drug?” Noah asked._ _

__Parrish nodded._ _

__“Are you suggesting that this Kavinsky fucker has successfully made himself a junior militia of Greywarens and is now going to sell them off to the highest bidders?” Gansey asked._ _

__“Two points to the Congresswoman’s son. That’s exactly what I’m suggesting,” Parrish said, pointing at Gansey. “Let’s see if you can get the next one right: Who’s on the invite list?”_ _

__None of them ventured a guess._ _

__Parrish turned to the last page in the file and Ronan’s heart stopped at the name highlighted in neom yellow in the middle of the list._ _

___Declan Lynch._  
\----_ _

__“I don’t know what you want me to say, Ronan.”_ _

__“This is some serious shit, Dec. Anything other than what you’re fucking saying would be useful.”_ _

__“Well, now that I’m looking at the damn thing-”_ _

__“ _You haven't even looked at it yet?_ ”_ _

__“It came in at 12:02 a.m. yesterday. Hannah would claw my eyes out if I even went near my email on a Sunday-”_ _

__“Declan, back on track,” Gansey said from Ronan’s side. Ronan had only spared three minutes to listen to Parrish’s half-assed plan before calling his brother about this. How was Declan in with someone like this and Ronan didn’t know? Declan had sworn that he had cleaned up the business, that he’d gone as legit as one could go in the trafficking of dream objects, that they weren’t selling to people like this anymore. _Fucking Declan.__ _

__Ronan refused to look at anyone as he asked, “Does Mom know you do business with this guy?” It was a childish question, they were grown-ass men for God’s sake, but in his defense, Aurora Lynch in a rage was more terrifying than anyone or anything else on the planet._ _

__“Do you think I’m dumb? Of course Mom doesn’t know,” Declan’s voice echoed into the room and Parrish snorted at the comment. “Who was that?”_ _

__“The CIA guy I mentioned,” Ronan said, glaring at Parrish’s reflection in the glossy screen of the cell phone. Parrish shrugged unapologetically. “Also, the CIA is following you-”_ _

__“Of course they fucking are. At this point, who isn’t?”_ _

__“You should probably get more security on the family to be safe, Dec.”_ _

__“Lynch, this isn’t a personal call,” The Commander said gruffly from behind Sargent._ _

__Declan’s voice trailed out of the phone, tight and angry, “Did this guy say something about them? Do I need to handle anything?”_ _

__“Declan-”_ _

__“Ronan, they’re my fucking kids-”_ _

__“You honestly think I’d put them at risk?” Ronan’s palm slammed onto the table beside the phone. Everyone, including Gray, backed up a foot as the echo of flesh against steel rang in the room. “Parrish is going to keep his completely unfounded and unconfirmed theories about certain members of my family to himself, aren’t you, Parrish?”_ _

__“Abso-fucking-lutely.”_ _

__“And he’s going to give me his computer which is going to meet a very violent end-”_ _

__“You’re really going to destroy his computer?” Sargent asked, dubious._ _

__Ronan glared at her and then back at the phone. “He should just be happy it isn’t his skull.” Sargent and Parrish flinched. “Declan, I have things handled on my end. Handle them on yours.”_ _

__“Already done.”_ _

__“Can we get back to the reason we called?” Parrish asked. He had the good grace to blush under Ronan’s quelling scrutiny._ _

__“You all realize this idea has more holes in it than I care to point out?” Declan asked, his conceited drawl rubbing against Ronan’s final nerve._ _

__“Not your concern, Lynch,” the Commander growled. “Either you’re in or you’re out.”_ _

__There was background noise, jangling metal like keys and the crunching of gravel. “Will it put my family in danger?”_ _

__“You mean more danger than what your business already entails?” Parrish asked, ducking back into the space where Ronan was hovering above the phone._ _

__“Whoever that was, fuck you.” Declan sighed, “But yes, that’s what I mean.”_ _

__“Probably not, Dec,” Ronan said. “You just need to respond saying you’re sending some of your guys for a look-see before the auction. We’ll handle the rest.”_ _

__There was a long silence, one that Ronan suspected Declan enjoyed a bit too much. His brother always enjoyed wielding his power over his siblings. Then, finally, “Fine. I’m in. But if anything happens to Chloe or Sean-”_ _

__“Declan, you do remember who you’re talking to right?” Ronan asked, scooping up the phone and taking it off speaker. He placed it to his ear._ _

__“Don’t be a dick,” Declan scoffed._ _

__“Fuck off,” Ronan said._ _

__“Call me when you’re ready to do this shit?”_ _

__“Yeah, yeah. Give me an hour,” Ronan said and hit the call end button. He dropped the phone into his lap. “We have our in.”_ _

__“You think he’ll be able to do what we need him to?” Sargent asked, eyeing Colonel Gray._ _

__“Lynches don’t like the word no,” Gray replied. He glared at Ronan with a fondness that he clearly didn’t want to have. “This the good brother or the shitty brother?”_ _

__“Two guesses, Sir.”_ _

__“Good,” the Commander said. “We don’t need anyone with a moral compass getting in our way on this one. Parrish, will the CIA release this one to us or am I going to have to go in like a hard ass to get the lead?”_ _

__“You honestly think anyone would even believe me if I brought this to them?” Parrish asked. “I put most of this together on my own time and, let’s be real, it has conspiracy theory written all over it. I’d rather not get sent for a psych eval every Monday for the next three months if that’s at all avoidable.”_ _

__Gray rubbed at his eyes. “Give me twenty minutes. I need to make some calls. All of you wait here.”_ _

__Less than thirty seconds after the Commander left, Ronan pushed back from the table. “I have to piss.”_ _

__He did have to pee but more than anything he needed to get out of that room. He had seen his fair share of shit, had done his fair share of shit, and was no stranger to fucked up, but he had never been good at handling the missions where kids were involved. And he absolutely had not expected to start his week by being confronted be a complete stranger about his otherness, about his family._ _

__He needed a fucking minute to process the shit storm he had just endured._ _

__The bathroom was mercifully devoid of life and he was granted a moment of much needed silence._ _

__He emptied his bladder and rinsed his hands, splashing half an ocean across his face to help clear out his muddled brain, when the door behind him creaked open then shut. “Gansey, I’m fine. You don’t need to check on me every five seconds. I’m not going to-” He used the mirror to look over his shoulder, “- you aren’t Gansey.”_ _

__Parrish's eyebrows quirked. “Astute observation. No wonder you got through your Operator Training Course so quickly.”_ _

__Ronan turned and leaned heavily against the sink. “I got pulled from OTC early, never finished. Shit, I thought you knew what you were talking about.”_ _

__“I just assumed since you’re here that you finished the actual training.”_ _

__“I never would have passed the psych exams. And I couldn’t be trusted with that level of sleep deprivation around strangers.” Why was he just spouting off these secrets to this guy? Well, not the whole secret._ _

__Eyes trained on the sink behind Ronan, Parrish said, “So they just let you go straight into operational work? That seems a bit premature.”_ _

__“Fuck no. It took almost a full year to get a group of guys together who could handle my, uh, special skill set. Gansey and I had separate training, no psych evals. Everyone already knew how fucked up we were and signed up to work with us anyway. Crazy fucks.” Ronan bared his teeth at this; if he was just going to keep giving away pieces of his past so easily to this guy he was going to at least make it look like they were pieces that didn’t matter._ _

__Parrish still wasn’t making eye contact. “ _What are you guys_? Your unit doesn’t even have a name. You aren’t Delta, hell, you aren’t anything. You operate out of Joint Special Operations Command, but no one knows what you do or who you are. Two soldiers, one airman, and a marine doctor. It’s a confusing combination, Lynch. A bit disproportionate as well and-”_ _

__“We were two, two, and two in the beginning, but we lost some guys along the way.” Ronan glared at his boots. So much for making it look like it didn’t matter._ _

__Fuck, he hated being in uniform. Being in uniform meant he wasn’t in the field and if he wasn’t in the field then he was spending too much time in his own goddamn head. And his head was never the best place to be._ _

__“Shit,” Parrish breathed, staring at his own feet. “I didn’t mean to-”_ _

__Ronan scrubbed at his face, his headache making an astounding resurgence. “What are you doing here, Parrish? I don’t think Gray actually thought we should compare dick sizes.”_ _

__Instead of flushing in embarrassment, Parrish laughed. The noise made Ronan’s hands flex. “I’m not here for that, I’m here to…” Parrish stowed his fisted hands into the pockets of his jeans. The act was simultaneously boyish and restrained in its nature. “I’m sorry about earlier. Honestly, I didn’t know what I was saying. I’m not good with people and I didn’t realize-”_ _

__“Parrish, it’s fine. I’m not going to kill you in your sleep.”_ _

__“Well, that’s a relief.”_ _

__“Doesn’t mean I’m not going to kill you while you’re awake.” Parrish’s face fell. “Relax, man. Just give me all the shit you have on my family and we won’t have a problem.”_ _

__Parrish nodded fervently. “I am sorry. I let my curiosity get away from me. I know you and your niece aren’t a science experiment or what the fuck ever- I just- you defy the laws of physics and-”_ _

__“Parrish, stop fucking apologizing.”_ _

__“- you’re a miracle.”_ _

__Ronan’s head snapped up. _You’re a miracle_. The last person he had this conversation with called him a different _m_ word. A lot of other words too._ _

__Miracle. Monster. Miracle. Monster._ _

___This is so fucked up. I can’t fucking deal with this anymore. I’m sorry, I just can’t do this anymore, Ronan_._ _

__Miracle. Monster. Miracle. Monster._ _

__His heart strained against his ribs doing its best to crash out and bleed across the grimy bathroom floor. He blamed it on the last hour locked up in a room talking about children being turned into lab rats by some mafia dickweed trying to make money off of human lives. Not the fact that this astonishingly confusing man went from making Ronan homicidal to calling him a miracle in less than twenty minutes._ _

__He wasn’t a miracle._ _

__Monster. Monster. Monster._ _

__John was right, not Parrish. John had actually known Ronan- had known him inside out, backwards, forwards, and upside down- it wasn’t as though this veritable stranger knew what the fuck he was talking about._ _

__“We should get back,” Parrish said with a tentative smirk, oblivious to Ronan’s internal battle._ _

__Ronan’s head pulsed, sluggish. “Uh, yeah.”_ _

__Parrish held the door open and trailed him back to their briefing room where the Commander had already returned._ _

__“- everyone gets set-up. Ah, Lynch, Parrish, so nice of you to join us again.”_ _

__They both mumbled apologies, shuffling back to their seats._ _

__“As I was saying, Parrish, the CIA has agreed to pass you over to SAD, who has so graciously said we can keep you for as long as we need you. They don’t want anything to do with us or this-”_ _

__“Thank God,” Henry said._ _

__“Blue has also been reshuffled and she’ll be with us. You two still sure you want in on this?” He gestured between Sargent and Parrish._ _

__“Hell. Yes.”_ _

__“Is that a serious question?”_ _

__“Good. The Brits, as always, are allowing us in without question, but if we’re caught, we’re on our fucking own.”_ _

__“When aren’t we, Sir?” Gansey asked._ _

__“Lynch, are you sure you’re ready to go back under? Last time didn’t end as we hoped.”_ _

__“I wouldn’t call this going under,” Ronan huffed. “I’m taking on my own identity-”_ _

__“You may have to do some things you’re not going to like-”_ _

__“How is that any different-”  
“Because _Ronan Lynch_ will be doing them. Not some fake name with a fake life and a fake accent. _You_ will be doing these things and you won’t be able to box it all up real nice and shove it down into the deepest darkest depths of that soul you like to pretend you don’t have.”_ _

__Instead of looking to Gansey, or Cheng, or Czerny, Ronan’s eyes skated across the planes of Parrish’s face. Christ, those cheekbones were unfairly high. “I’ve got this, Sir.”_ _

__The Commander studied him for a moment then turned to Gansey. “He’s your responsibility, Dick. Keep him on his leash.”_ _

__Gansey and Ronan turned to each other and grinned. Identical twins in everything but actual appearance. “I think I left his leash at the park, Sir. I’m going to need a new one.”_ _

__Cheng and Czerny did their best to disguise their laughter._ _

__“You four are giving me an ulcer,” The Commander grit out. “Parrish, Gansey may have the lead in the field but Lynch is your responsibility.”_ _

__“I think I can handle him,” Parrish said, that small smile tucked in the corner of his mouth._ _

__The Commander grunted, his irritation with all of them plain. “Lynch, call your shitty brother back. We’ve got some fucking work to do.”_ _

**Author's Note:**

> So, here we go...
> 
> Hopefully your interest is somewhat piqued?
> 
> Let me know what you thought and I'll talk to ya'll later this week when I post the next chapter of Inside Out.


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